Winner
by Minikimii
Summary: As Sora clutched the letter of foreign memories against his chest, tears that weren't his began streaming down his cheeks. Deep inside, he knew Roxas might never stop crying. Mentions of AkuRoku


Disclaimer: KH: 358/2 Days belongs to Square Enix, those bastards.  
I just finished playing Days and I couldn't stop crying. Poor Xion.I needed to write this, ya know? And just for a little heads up: This is an angst bucket with boylove mixed in, but it's not void of Xion.

Brace yourselves.

**MAJOR SPOILER WARNING FOR KINGDOM HEARTS: 358/2 DAYS.**

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**Winner **

_"Give this to him," the redhead pleaded. "When I'm gone, please give this to him from me. He deserves as much." _

_Hands shaking with tremors he couldn't understand, Sora reached forward and took the papers. He would; there was no way in the world he'd let Axel leave without a last goodbye. _

- -

I don't know when it started, but it hasn't stopped since.

Roxas. It's been so long, too long, since I've seen your face, felt your skin, heard your voice… and I probably never will again. It's a scary thought, I know, but this is one truth we can't run from.

First off, I want you to know that everything I say from starting from here 'til the end of this letter is the absolute truth. No pulling punches, no sugar coating, no hyperbole, no understatement, no white lies, no partial truths. I want to give you everything this time. Everything. You deserve it.

For starters, I thought you were a bit of an idiot when we first met. You stumbled through your first week like a little blond zombie with a Keyblade. Hah. Yeah, I know I've said it numerous times before, but it's too true—you were a silent shell.

I feel a bit stupid myself for not seeing it then, but beauty is hard to find when it's socially unresponsive! That's why I'm still grateful now that I was your first partner for your first ever mission. You were so earnest when we both knew the motions of the mission were ridiculous (seriously… me teaching you how to _jump_? That was a new kind of pathetic, even for the Organization). And then the first time your personality decided to show itself, you stared me straight in the eyes with those big blue eyes and deadpanned "I could have done that blindfolded".

Maybe part of me was suddenly amused or getting desperately bored when I invited you for the "icing on the cake". Even thought it was the second time, it really felt like the first. I don't know what I was expecting after the mission, but I like to imagine that Fate decided to shove her hands down to earth and force-feed us the seeds for a romance via sea-salt ice cream.

I also like to pretend your memories didn't start until the second time up on the clock tower because you hadn't noticed me enough before then or because I hadn't decided to extend my hand out to you and prove to you that you were whole, that you existed. Pretentious of me to even think so, but I feel like I was the one to give you that little extra push in the right direction.

(Shut up. You already know I'm a cocky bastard, okay? Okay.)

You know already, but I have to confess on my own: I didn't always tell you the truth. I kept things from you because I wanted to protect you, Roxas.

After the first few days, I knew you were something different; I knew you were something special. It wasn't just the Keyblade that tipped me off, but the way you acted. You always talked like you had a heart. There is no doubt in my mind that you really do have one now.

To me, the biggest part of your proof of a heart was your lack of memory. The Superior told us (those with memories of the past) that anything we felt was simply an echo of what was once there. Kingdom Hearts was going to complete us, he said. Kingdom Hearts would make us feel _whole_.

Before you came into my life, there was so much darkness in my mind. Nobodies can't feel emotions—Xemnas had spoon-fed us this lie for so long there were times in the beginning when I almost refused to believe you were real. There were hours in the day, hours I had once spent napping in my room, where all I could do was try to convince myself you were some sort of hallucination, that nothing in this world could ever be so beautiful, so utterly _perfect_.

In time, I realized I didn't want Kingdom Hearts to be completed. In time, I realized I didn't need Kingdom Hearts to feel whole—I already had you. If we were to complete Kingdom Hearts, there would be no more missions. No more post-mission Twilight Town visits, no more icing on the cake.

I believed that maybe if I couldn't have a heart, you could share some of yours with me. Now I know that it was just about getting mine to work again.

Do you remember the day we had our first mission together in Neverland? I had doubted you before when you came back from Never Land told me you could fly. I… I was still a bit the jaded prick I'd been when we first met.

You probably couldn't tell, but I was jittery with excitement when I found out we were going to have a mission together again, just the two of us. I wanted to see how you'd grown, if the missions Saïx was giving you were too hard to handle. But when I witnessed you fly, something clicked into place. You looked at me, eyes so clear, so blue, so pure, and just told me to _trust you._ I knew right then and there that I could, and I did. There was such elation in your eyes. Seeing it, I didn't know what to believe anymore.

Since that day, I've a little bit started to wish we could to go back to Neverland. I could take both you and Xion with me and we could stay in a place where things would never change, we could never grow old. We could be in a place where flying wasn't just a dream, where you and Xion would have all the time in the world to teach me how to use my dormant heart fragments again.

We would have all the time in all the worlds to be together.

Yeah, I miss you too, Xion. It's true you weren't exactly one of us, but you were still _real_. Maybe Number XIV didn't belong in Organization XIII, but you, Xion, you belonged with us. It didn't matter what you were—as long as you were with _us_. You have a heart, just like we do.

Did.

I don't know how to approach this, Roxas; the subject of you, of her… The subject of you two and hearts, I mean. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

From almost the beginning I knew something was off about her, especially with the way Saïx was treating her, the way we all saw her slightly differently. The first time you told Xion and me you wished the three of us could always remain together, I was still the jaded realist the Organization had cut us out to be. Sea-salt ice cream melts, and eventually there wouldn't be any more for us to eat. The tower would crumble away into rubble eventually and the Organization would either complete its goal or fail.

The second time we were together again and you both said wanted to stay like this forever, the last time we were together again, I believed. I wanted it too that time. I wanted to make it happen for you, Roxas, for you, Xion. I wanted to make it happen for _us_.

There was still so much hope you your eyes, both of you. It's funny, I think, how you, Xion, and Sora all had the same eyes. I guess that's part of why I liked you three runts so much, because their eyes reminded me of you. Roxas, you were first in my life, first in my heart.

I miss you, Roxas. I miss you so much that sometimes when I'm about to fall asleep, I pretend you're lying next to me again. I pretend in my mind that for just a moment, we're back in my room or your room and you're draped naked over my body, fast asleep, covered in sweat, pink in the cheeks, and the cloud white sheets still smell like us. Sometimes I pretend we're laying out in the open air, doing a long over-night mission in Neverland. All the Heartless have been cleared out and we're both so exhausted to the bone that all we want to do is cuddle against each other and stare at the stars. Other times, I'll pretend we're up at the clock tower: you're naked on your back and barely still oh so innocent, eyes glazed over while you gaze at me with that loving expression I could never get enough of.

I could never get enough of you, Roxas. Never. Yet… every time we were together, every time you let me _feel_… It was like everything was filled. Everything was right and enough and perfect and whole.

There's no way I'll ever forget the way you feel, the way you made me feel. Your touch has been seared into my skin, your smell burned into my nostrils, I can't… I _won't_ forget you.

Normally, I wouldn't like to admit this, but I promised I would tell you the truth of everything. And ya wanna know what the truth of everything is? I love every moment I had ever spent with you two.

Yeah, yeah, you've turned me into a sap, Roxas. I'd ask you to shut up, but that's impossible seeing as how I'm gone and you're…

I hope that wherever you are now, you've found friends. Ya know? People who have sea-salt ice cream, people who "make those 'ha ha' noises" at stupid stuff that doesn't make any sense, people who go out of their way to make sure you're doing alright, people with or without hearts.

Well, seeing as how you're probably… well, you're probably where I think you are, there are no opportunities to make friends anymore. I just hope you don't mind _his_ friends. Really, Kairi isn't so bad. Neither is Riku, even though you two… well…

People won't see only you, hear only you, but him as well. The world is cruel, we both know firsthand how that can be. The Organization was the ultimate form of misfit cruelty. And they daresay because Nobodies don't have hearts, we can't feel? If I couldn't feel, then how would I know that I miss your laugh?

I miss your touch.

I miss your smile.

I miss the smell of your hair.

I miss the sound of your voice.

The feel of your skin.

You.

Roxas… Roxas, Roxas, Roxas… I miss you so much. _So much_. If… if we'd have run away together, the three of us…

Looking back, I feel like I lied to you when I said I was more or less the same person I'd been before I became a Nobody. You made me feel like I had heart, more so than when my Other supposedly had one. And Xion… sometimes when I looked at her face, I would see flashes of you instead. Sometimes, it was like I was with two of you, but I knew there was only one of you, Roxas. One of you, too, Xion.

Xion. I wish I could tell you I'm sorry.

I miss you too. I really do. You were my sister, in almost every sense of the word, and I… If only… if only there was a way for us to be together without any of us hurting, without any of us hurting each other. If only we could sit on the clock tower again, share sea salt ice cream together again, laugh like there was nothing wrong in the world, that we weren't all killing each other a little inside, dying a little inside every time we were together, living more because we were together. Xion, my sister; Roxas, my love, I miss you two so much. I tried to find a way back to you two, and, well… you know where it's gotten me.

Roxas, you left me the WINNER stick. I carried it in my cloak wherever I went, and now I've enclosed it with this letter. Did you know they only made about fifteen of those sticks? I'm surprised you even got one.

I found the journal Saïx asked you to keep in your room. I read everything. Normally, I don't like having people invade my privacy, but I wish you'd gotten the chance to read mine too, Roxas. Your journal was so filled with out names, and you hated me so much after… and that you would still give me the stick is… is…

You changed me. You, Roxas, you changed me into this person that I am. I don't think we, as Nobodies, are the byproduct of a person with a strong heart becoming a Heartless. I think we are second chances. Why else would the most of us be given a life with a memory of the past? The fucked up mistakes we made last life could be made right, and those of us with memories, with fragments of our old hearts left, can be given a chance to become a better person—a stronger person.

If we choose to, I think we have the right to settle for an idyllic life. Who said we _needed_ to collect hearts? Who said we had to fight?

This letter is full of firsts. I wrote to you this way so you'd remember the happier days. Please, don't dwell on the times we spent apart, but the times we spent together.

I've waited for so long, worked so damn hard to be back together again… And, now that I'm gone… we're gone… We can finally go home. Together.

Xion, I never hated you. Maybe I was only kind to you in the beginning because I wanted Roxas to be happy, but you became part of my life I couldn't let go of. I couldn't just let you leave like that; I couldn't just let my little sister go without a fight. I never stopped fighting to get you back, you know? I wanted you and Roxas and me to be together. Together, happy, and alive.

Roxas, the whole truth can really be summed up into one sentence: I don't know when I fell in love with you—or even when I learned to love—but ever since this heart has restarted, it's never stopped.

I'll never stop.

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I cried when I wrote this.

_Bisous, Minikimii_


End file.
